International politics: In a class of its own

The big news in the international circuit right now is the whole Iran-Israel-US love-hate triangle. Many people try to describe the dynamics of this complex diplomatic situation using analogies. For example, US is often likened to Big Brother, or Uncle Sam. Or the world police. Iran is usually likened to a drunk brawler who is going to get himself shot by the world police. There are many such analogies, so to establish my credentials as a person with an opinion, I have come up with my own analogy for this situation.

I think this whole mess is very much like the intricate relationships in an Indian middle school classroom.

Israel and Iran are just like two kids who don’t like each other. Their names start with the same alphabet so they are forced to sit next to each other according to roll number. They are constantly fighting over how much space they have taken in the desk, whose notebook is on whose side, talking trash about the other to their friends behind their backs. And now Iran is taking karate (a.k.a. nuclear weapons) classes and Israel is all worried about it. So Israel complains about it to …

The teacher, the United States. So the teacher comes in as the impartial judge and tries to settle the dispute and punish both kids for fighting. Except, teachers aren’t ever impartial. Israel is the A student, really sucking up to the teacher, the teacher’s pet if you will. While Iran is the brat, never doing homework, always bunking classes and threatening to destroy other kids, especially Israel, in nuclear hellfire. So the teacher punishes both kids, bans other kids from playing with Iran and makes him sit in a corner (sanctions), and gives Israel some chocolates (billions of dollars of aid).

Enter China, the sports teacher. He knows better than to interfere with the workings of the classroom, where the teacher is in control. But secretly during sports periods, he helps Iran and his gang pick on nerdy capitalist kids like Israel. The only person who stops this secret war between teachers from hurting the kids is...

The principal, the United Nations. He doesn’t like whats going on in the classroom, the favouritism, the secretive bullying and all this infighting. But he is powerless, because he is sleeping with the seductive vamp teacher. And the entire school, even the kids, know it. So he must stay silent and be the teacher’s lackey, because everyone knows his dirty secret.

There is, of course, an old vice principal, Russia. She was once a young ambitious teacher, just like the US. And it seemed like she was on her way when she became VP. But then she has been the VP for the past 50 years, while the US has the UN, and rest of the school under her thumb. She can only hope that she’ll die before the teacher becomes the principal. Even her young and smart boyfriend has left her now...

He is the smart new computer teacher, who was the VP’s boytoy when she was tops. But now the VP’s all old and wrinkled. So the nerdy professor, India, dreams of getting with the hot teacher, the US of A. She never gives in, but she teases and titillates him, all the while going around with his mentally slow but tall and muscular lab assistant, Pakistan.

With so much politics going on in a simple school, all the administrative staff decided to join forces and have a unified voice and formed the European Union. That is until they decided they actually hate each other and are going to lose all their money and burn the whole school down in their rage.